


Tend Me Gently

by dracoqueen22



Series: Tethers [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Developing Relationship, F/F, First Kiss, Friendship, non-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24329656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: Adventuring is far dirtier than Celeste imagined it would be, but it’s also an excuse to get in a bath with Rathi.
Relationships: Rathi of the Cinders/Celeste Stiel
Series: Tethers [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1455610
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Tend Me Gently

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't canon for the Tethers Universe at large, but it's a possibility for sure. I absolutely want the relationships to develop naturally. But I definitely wanted to see these two ladies interact, so I wrote this little bit. I hope you like it!

Adventuring is not all the fun Celeste imagined it to be.  
  
Which isn't to say she's bored or scared or ready to flee back to Alduin. She's having fun, learning new things, seeing the world, expanding her view. It's all amazing and incredible and she's glad she followed her cousin on this journey.  
  
But there are a few luxuries from home she misses, and ready access to baths is one of them. Out in the world, small towns and villages either don't have bathouses or have a large, communal one without privacy and with water filthy from repeated use. Larger towns and cities have bathhouses, but they are expensive, and fewer still are the ones with privacy.  
  
Long days spent riding or walking are murder on the body. Sometimes, Celeste just wants a good long soak, but all there is to be had might be a local river or a communal pool swirling with the filth of previous customers.  
  
Neither of which are appealing.  
  
She loves it when they wander back to Marbaden. It has the best bathhouses. One in particular, the Sudsy Soap, has private rooms of varying sizes, for those willing to drop the necessary coin.  
  
Celeste eagerly thrusts the gold into the attendant's hands. She pays for Rathi, also, while Tempest declines because she prefers the common baths. And apparently Dakota prefers her anywhere he can keep an eye on her – more paternal than romantic, of course.  
  
"I feel a bit spoiled," Rathi says as Celeste pays extra for a basket of cloths and sweet soaps and bathing oils to rub into their skin afterward. "What's the occasion?"  
  
"You're looking rough. Figured you could use it," Celeste answers, eying the cuts and bruises which litter Rathi's skin. There are dark circles under her eyes, and Celeste knows by the way Rathi's standing, her ribs have taken a beating.  
  
A hot soak will do her good.  
  
The room is small, the pool large enough for perhaps three grown adults, but it smells perfumed and fresh, and the little shelves are decorated with tiny vases of flowers. A bench is available for their belongings, and Celeste eagerly shucks off her robes.  
  
Rathi, however, moves much more gingerly.  
  
"Do you need some help?" Celeste asks, and then hurriedly corrects with, "I mean, I know you're in pain right now, and sometimes, the less movement the better."  
  
Damn. She feels so tongue-tied around Rathi sometimes. Rathi's so sure of herself, sure of everything she does, even without her other arm. Celeste never seeks to offend, and sometimes, she thinks she inadvertently does.  
  
Rathi laughs tiredly. She gestures with the one arm, "By all means. I wouldn't turn down an extra pair of hands."  
  
Celeste chuckles and steps out of her robe, leaving only her underclothes. Rathi has always been much less concerned about her nudity, but Celeste still finds herself self-conscious at times. She's plumper than most, with a softness no amount of physical exertion or training will defeat. She's rounder and heavier and clumsier and--  
  
Well, at least her fingers are deft enough as she eases Rathi out of her armor, her long tunic, the complicated ties of her leathers. She wears only the minimum smallclothes, but it's the chest bindings that'll be the most troublesome.  
  
"By the gods I hate giant spiders," Rathi groans as she tries to shift and abruptly checks her movement, pain flickering across her face.  
  
"I'm sorry. After I healed Easton, I'm all tapped out."  
  
Rathi grins at her, eyes sparkling with a tired humor. "I'm sore, but nothing a nice soak and a good night's rest won't cure." She winks. "And if I know Tyrael, he's already found us the most comfortable rooms in the city."  
  
"He's so high-maintenance," Celeste bemoans and tugs the last of the bindings free, dropping the thick wrappings onto the pile of Rathi's clothes.  
  
Rathi sighs with relief and rubs her belly with her free hand. "Now for that soak." She holds out a hand to Celeste and wriggles her fingers. "Help a lady into the water?"  
  
“It would be my pleasure.” Celeste offers a hand, lets Rathi brace her weight as she steps down into the warm bath, groaning with satisfaction as she sinks to her midriff.  
  
“This is perfect,” Rathi purrs, leaning against the walls of the bath and bracing her elbow behind her. She looks up at Celeste with bright eyes and a tilt of her head. “You joining me?”  
  
Celeste flushes. “Yes, of course,” she says, and fiddles with the ties of her smallclothes. It’s not the first time she’s been nude in front of Rathi, but there’s something different about it now. Perhaps it’s the intimacy of the small, shared bath.  
  
She takes a deep breath. It’s only a big deal if she makes it one.  
  
Rathi suddenly looks away from her, twisting gently to reach for the basket of supplies Celeste had purchased. Celeste takes the opportunity to pull off her smallclothes and step down into the pool, nearly slipping on the slick rock when she moves too quickly and causes an outrageous splash. Curse her lack of dexterity!  
  
“You all right?” Rathi asks.  
  
“Fine, fine. Lost my footing is all.” Celeste flushes and sinks down in the water, up to her clavicle, the water lapping the ends of her curls and immediately dampening them. The water is wonderfully warm, the perfect temperature actually, and the rocks beneath her smooth rather than rough and gritty.  
  
She tries to concentrate on it, rather than the sight of Rathi’s breasts bobbing in the water, her beautiful caramel skin kissed by droplets and dappled with an array of battle scars. Of course, it’s the puckered flesh of her right arm, ending just below the shoulder, which is the worst of the scars. Rathi carries them all with pride, and if asked, will happily regale anyone with the story of how said scar was received.  
  
"Does it hurt you?" Celeste asks, blurts out rather, and then is horrified by her lack of tact. She's usually much better with her words than this.  
  
Rathi chuckles, however, and shifts to get comfortable, Celeste trying and failing not to watch the bob of her breasts. "It did at first. When it happened. It ached for weeks afterward." She touches the stump of her arm, her fingers gliding across the scars. "It doesn't hurt now. Mostly. When it rains."  
  
"You don't have people who can regenerate lost limbs?" Celeste asks. She's heard of older, higher-level clerics who are capable of such a feats. Druids, too, with their connection to nature can do such a thing.  
  
"We do. But this was a sacrifice I gave for an important victory." Rathi's smile is soft, but proud, her eyes shining with it as the water steams around her, flames briefly licking across her skin. "It's a symbol, to let my people know I would give anything to protect them."  
  
"That's incredible," Celeste says, honestly, because it is. She can't imagine having that much conviction. Is there anything she's that determined about?  
  
She not like Tyrael, who's chasing after a quest with single-minded focus, with faith in the path laid out before him. Or Easton who has a goal, even if he's being cagey about it. Tempest and Dakota are relatively carefree, all things considered, and Rathi searches for her brother, an honorable endeavor.  
  
Celeste left home to find adventure, but there's nothing so grand about it.  
  
Selfish, she thinks, in the grand scheme of things.  
  
Rathi dabs at her collarbone with the washing cloth, careful around the scrapes standing red and raised against her skin. The thick lines of kohl melt away, but the opal gem still twinkles at the base of her throat – permanent, she’d said.  
  
"Others tell me it's barbaric,” Rathi comments as the water around her turns gray from the kohl. “They try to tell me I should be ashamed of the loss, or that I should miss my limb."  
  
"Do you?"  
  
"Sometimes. When I go to reach for something that needs two hands, and I only have the one, but I've adapted." Rathi lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "It's only a limb. I kept the things that matter."  
  
Celeste smiles. "And you're still dangerous." Not to mention beautiful, powerful, sexy, feminine. All of the above. Rathi is a gorgeous package and nothing, not even her scars, detracts from her.  
  
"That I am."  
  
Celeste sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, worrying it with her teeth. "Do you need help washing? With your back, I mean." Is that too forward? Is it a thing friends ask of each other? Is she putting too much temptation in front of herself?  
  
"I'm hardly one to turn down an offer that results in me being spoiled." Rathi lifts the basket and holds it out in offer. "By all means, tend me gently, Celeste."  
  
Her face is hot, and Celeste blames it on the warmth of the bath. "You're incorrigible," she says as she wades through the water, pretending she's as bold and confident as Rathi.  
  
"It's one of my many charms." Rathi turns around, offering the expanse of her back and shoulders, as scarred as her front, and a wicked, puckered scar slashed diagonally across her back. How she survived it, Celeste doesn't know.  
  
She grows more and more in awe of Rathi with every day they spend together.  
  
Celeste dips the washing cloth into the bath, scrubs it over the chunk of perfumed soap they'd given her, and dabs carefully over Rathi's back and shoulders, several days worth of traveling grime and the day's battle eliminated in the suds.  
  
Rathi hums a satisfied sound. "We should stay a few days. Relax. Get our bearings. I know Tyrael has that super important quest of his, but I'm beat."  
  
"I think we all are. It won't take much to convince TJ either. He's a bit shaken, I think." If she focuses on conversation and the task in front of her, it'll keep her mind from wandering to untoward places.  
  
Like how much she'd love to taste the back of Rathi's neck, where a tattoo of some kind peeks out from the nape of her hair. It's a symbol, one Celeste doesn't recognize. Would it be too foward of her to ask?  
  
"Aren't we all?" Rathi murmurs. Her muscles flex as she leans against the edge of the bath. "That was a close one."  
  
"Yes, it was."  
  
They'd come really close to losing Easton. It had taken all Celeste had in her, plus a little aid from Tyrael, to knit his stomach back together before he bled out. The gratitude in his eyes had been worth draining herself, though it had left nothing for Rathi.  
  
"Makes you think, doesn't it?" Rathi asks.  
  
Celeste dips the washing cloth into the water again, keeps her focus on Rathi's back and shoulders, less cleaning now than distracting herself. "How so?"  
  
"About the things you want to make sure you get done before you die."  
  
"That's a bit morbid," Celeste says, though Rathi is right. There are a lot of things Celeste wants to do, and questions she wants to answer. Dying would keep her from a lot of it, and while she'll spend eternity in Berenthis' embrace, it'll be with regrets in her heart.  
  
"I prefer to think of it as practical."  
  
Rathi shifts under Celeste's hands, and she steps back to give her room to turn around, her expression oddly solemn when Rathi is generally one to have a cheerful smile on her lips, no matter the circumstance.  
  
"Can I ask you a question?"  
  
Celeste blinks and manages a crooked smile. "What? You want to wash my back next?" she teases as she offers the washing cloth.  
  
Rathi moves to take it, only to wrap her hand around Celeste's instead. "If I asked to kiss you, what would you say?"  
  
Celeste's eyes widen. Her heart skips several beats. "I... Is this you asking?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Trust Rathi to be blunt and forward. She's never hesitated about anything. She always goes after what she wants. She's brave and determined in a way Celeste has often dreamed of emulating.  
  
Celeste's tongue flicks over her bottom lip. "I would then ask what's taken you so long?"  
  
Rathi's eyes light with an inner fire. She grins and tugs on Celeste's hand, only to release her to slide fingers around the back of Celeste's neck in a gently firm grip.  
  
"You're amazing," she says before her mouth makes contact with Celeste's and Celeste's universe goes white with the warmth and taste of Rathi on her lips.  
  
Their bodies collide, sending up a splash of tepid water, but Rathi's skin is hot, like there's a fire burning inside of her, barely caged by flesh. Celeste grasps her bare hips, slides around to rest her hands at the base of Rathi's bare back, and marvels that she's allowed to do this, as Rathi's mouth moves against hers, tongue gently testing the seam of her lips.  
  
Celeste opens for her, a soft gasp escaping into the kiss at the first touch of Rathi’s tongue to hers. Rathi seems to be, by nature, several degrees hotter, and it startles Celeste at first, as much as it makes her burn on the inside, her belly offering little jumps of excitement.  
  
Her fingers find the rough texture of scars, and Celeste traces them with featherlight touches, thanking Barinthus Rathi survived these wounds to be here, for this moment, where Celeste can kiss her.  
  
Rathi toys with the hairs at the nape of her neck before she pulls back from the kiss with a little nip. It takes all Celeste has not to chase after her lips, but it’s all right, because Rathi presses their foreheads together, and follows it with a low, quiet chuckle.  
  
“I’ve been wanting to do that since I first saw you,” Rathi says.  
  
Celeste blinks. “Really?”  
  
“To be fair, both of you are unfairly pretty, but you have the most kissable lips,” Rathi says, and follows it up with a kiss, so quick as to flutter over Celeste’s lips. “And from what I see, every part of you is kissable.”  
  
By the gods, she’s ridiculous.  
  
Celeste snorts and squeezes Rathi’s hips. “For future reference, you can kiss me anytime.” She slides her palms up and down Rathi’s sides, veering away from the bottom curve of her breasts, and anywhere too tempting.  
  
“Good to know.” Rathi grins and kisses her again, deeper this time, tongue sliding inside as if laying claim, her fingers tangling in Celeste’s curls.  
  
They press closer together, their bare skin slick and warm from the water, smelling strongly of the perfume. Rathi’s nipples are firm, pressing against Celeste, and the skin of her breast is silky smooth where they touch. A low throb of want pools in Celeste’s belly and trickles lower, gathering into a heavy need in her groin.  
  
Her fingers tighten on Rathi’s hips. She tells herself to have some self-control.  
  
She ends the kiss because she wants to take it further, and a cramped semi-private bathing room in the middle of Marbaden is not where she wants to do it.  
  
“We should probably actually wash,” Celeste says. “Before the water gets cold.”  
  
“Losing heat is not a problem as long as I’m around,” Rathi says with a laugh. She tugs gently on one of the curls hanging in Celeste’s face, watching it bounce back up. “But I get your meaning.” Her thumb brushes Celeste’s cheek, callous leaving the lightest of scraping sensation behind.  
  
Celeste shivers. She wants very badly to throw rational behavior into the wind and pull Rathi back into her arms.  
  
Instead, she takes a step back and grabs one of the washing cloths, pretending her temperature doesn’t immediately drop now that Rathi is no longer within reach. Rathi, however, merely cocks her head to the side, and her eyes brighten as if she’s had an idea.  
  
"So,” she says as she snatches the soap before Celeste can. “Is it my turn to wash your back?"  
  
Celeste laughs before she can stop herself, the tension shattered in a split-second, her shoulders shaking with mirth. She obediently turns and lifts her damp curls out of the way.  
  
“Fair is fair,” she says.  
  
Even if it is going to be an unholy tease.  
  
But then, she’s fairly certain Tyrael has already purchased them rooms, and it won’t be out of the ordinary for Celeste and Rathi to share. They’ll have a bed with clean linens and a door which locks, and...  
  
Celeste hums with anticipation.  
  
Yes, she’ll just have to wait until then.  
  


***

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is absolutely welcome and appreciated. I'd love to know what you all think!


End file.
